Occultist

Occultist

Int

	Throw off the chains of fear and embrace that which was forbidden.

This page is about the Ascendancy class. For the Ascendant passive, see Occultist (Ascendant passive).

The Occultist is an Ascendancy class for Witches.

Overview

The Occultist is a Witch class that specializes in cold and chaos damage over time (DoT) effects as well as curses, with a minor affinity for both energy shield and power charges. The class is capable of reliably generating said Power Charges without needing to trigger on-kill effects, using Forbidden Power. Malediction and Profane Bloom are a great boon to builds that utilize curses in any form, though to bring out their full potential you would ideally combine them with other sources of non-chaos damage. Withering Presence and Frigid Wake, the two specialized damage over time nodes behind Void Beacon, amplify the power of chaos and cold damage over time respectively. Historically the Occultist has been one of the most resilient Ascendants, utilizing many forms of damage mitigation and energy shield generation. With the removal of its notable Wicked Ward and the power down of Vile Bastion, it still retains its powerful defensive layers in either Frigid Wake or Malediction but is no longer the be-all and end-all for energy shield durability.

Passive skills

Occultist skill tree

Minor skills

This class has the following minor passive skills:

Notable skills

The class has the following notable passive skills:

Skill	Modifiers	Prerequisite	Preceding Passive
	Energy Shield, Power Charge Duration
	Energy Shield, Curse Effect
	Energy Shield, Curse Effect
	Energy Shield, Cold and Chaos Damage
Void Beacon	Energy Shield, Chaos Damage
Void Beacon	Energy Shield, Cold Damage
	Energy Shield, Energy Shield Recharge Rate

Version history

Version	Changes
3.13.0	Small passives that previously granted additional Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier now instead grant 10% increased Chaos Damage. Small passives that previously granted additional Cold Damage over Time Multiplier now instead grant 10% increased Cold Damage.
3.7.0	Wicked Ward has been removed from the Ascendancy tree. Vile Bastion no longer requires any Ascendancy notables. Each of the small passives on the Occultist Ascendancy tree now grant 6% increased energy shield (from 8%).
3.5.0	New Notables - Withering Presence and Frigid Wake. Added a small passive leading to Withering Presence which grants 8% increased maximum Energy Shield and +5% to Non-Ailment Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier. Added a small passive leading to Frigid Wake which grants 8% increased maximum Energy Shield and +5% to Cold Damage over Time Multiplier. The small passive leading to Void Beacon now also grants 10% increased Cold Damage.
3.2.0	Minor node Energy Shield, Critical Strike Chance replaced with Energy Shield, Power Charge Duration. Minor node Energy Shield, Curse Duration replaced with Energy Shield, Curse Effect.

See also

• Necromancer
• Elementalist